Legislative 2024: the programs of the RN and the New Popular Front “deny the economic and financial reality of the country”, believes Bruno Le Maire

Pour Bruno Le Maire, ministre de l'Economie, les programmes économqiues du Rassemblement national et du nouveau Front Populaire “coûteraient des centaines de millions d'euros”. MAXPPP – Fred Dugit

In an exclusive interview given to Midi Libre this Tuesday, June 18, the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry, deciphers the program of the extreme parties, the RN and the New Popular Front, and points out the excessive costs of their application.

How do you, the Minister of the Economy, analyze the economic programs proposed by the RN and the New Popular Front, in the context of the legislative elections ?

I observe this with dismay. These programs deny the economic and financial reality of the country. You have, on the far left side, hundreds of billions of euros in additional spending, which will inevitably lead to a massive increase in taxes. And, on the side of the National Rally, you have a perpetual denial, since all the RN's proposals are disappearing one after the other and melting like snow in the sun.

I remind you that the flagship proposal of the National Rally was the reduction of VAT, on food products, on electricity, on gas, on gasoline. In the end, there is nothing left, since Mr. Bardella announced in Le Parisien this morning (this Tuesday, Editor's note), that he would not cut VAT. So, my question is simple: what does the RN intend to do for the purchasing power of the French ? I'm afraid that the answer will be "nothing" . The first expectation of our compatriots is purchasing power. The first denial of the National Rally is purchasing power.

Mr. Bardella announced that the first measures he would take, if he were Prime Minister, from this summer, concerned precisely the power of’ rsquo;purchase. With, a second phase, in the fall, the pension reform.

It is a little difficult to understand the position of the National Rally. It changes from day to day and it changes from RN manager to RN manager. I still didn't quite understand what, ultimately, they were going to do about retirement. It is still a 17 billion euro issue and above all an issue which directly concerns retirees, the most modest retirees and people who work. Having so much vagueness on such a major subject is still really worrying.

At the same time, he explains that he wants to restore the public accounts while removing the pension reform, that is to say while renouncing 17 billion d’ euros of revenue for the State. All of this is totally incoherent and it is this inconsistency that arouses my deep concern and dismay. We no longer know where we live, neither with the National Rally, nor with the New Popular Front.

The Prime Minister spoke of new economic measures. Why not have you applied them sooner ?

Our line is clear, and this is, I think, the great strength of the majority. We want work to pay. This is the heart of our policy for purchasing power, that work pays. We create work, 2 million jobs, we have started to ensure that they pay more: the Macron bonus and tax exemption for overtime. We want to go further, with a Macron bonus, the threshold of which would be raised to 10,000 euros per year, and with a reduction in charges, which must be reviewed from A to Z, to help recreate salary dynamics and release employees. employees at the minimum wage level.

When Mr. Bardella says that he will audit the public accounts and that from there he will take the necessary economic measures, would that help to bring clarity ?

But the clarity is already there. All information is on the table. Mr. Bardella should not waste time proposing an audit, it is already there. It is done by the finance committee of the National Assembly, where the National Rally already sits. Everything is on the table, everything is known and every responsible person knows that today, the only thing that matters is to restore our public accounts, to make the savings necessary to straighten out the accounts and enable us to face any new crisis or new difficulty. This would allow us to invest in the future, particularly in new technologies or the decarbonization of our economy.

I would also like to remind you that all these programs are extremely expensive. From the extreme right as well as the extreme left. They would have an immediate consequence for our compatriots, for households, for SMEs, VSEs, craftsmen, the self-employed. This is the increase in interest rates. From today, it is more expensive for households and businesses to borrow. Why ? Because the markets are worried about the proposals from the far left and the far right. We cannot say that we want to defend purchasing power and present programs which will cause French interest rates to soar and which therefore increase the cost of borrowing for a household, when he wants to buy his house or his apartment, and the cost of borrowing for an SME or a VSE, when he wants to invest. It’s totally incoherent, it’s dangerous for the economic future of the country and it’s dangerous for the purchasing power of households.

Mr. Bardella says he wants to negotiate with Brussels a reduction of 2 billion euros in France's contribution to the Union budget European, but also the rules around the price of electricity. Could this be a solution ?

We will have difficulty negotiating with the European Union if we do not already respect the rules of the European Union. However, all the RN's proposals have one thing in common: they do not respect them, neither budgetary, since they increase France's deficit, nor regulatory, since everyone knows that these reductions in VAT rates are not regulatory with regard to European law. We cannot therefore both ask something from Europe and not respect its rules.

On the New Popular Front side, there are proposals such as blocking energy prices, prices of basic necessities, revaluation of the minimum wage, social assistance , increase in salaries of civil servants to 1,600 euros net, retirement at 60. Can all this be economically credible ?

This is all absurd, incoherent and dangerous. We cannot propose both freezing food prices and increasing farmers' income. Frankly, it’s making fun of the world. Moreover, saying that we are going to increase people's purchasing power, while promising to return to retirement at 60, is a cost of 1,800 euros per year, for each citizen French. Someone will have to pay. And those who will pay are, as always, the most modest, whose pensions will fall, and it is all taxpayers, whose taxes will increase.

We cannot promise the sudden increase in the SMIC by 200 euros net, from 1,400 to 1,600 euros net, without knowing that this will lead to massive layoffs on the part of companies, which will not be able to not pay these salaries. It will be a return to the nightmare of mass unemployment, from which we have emerged for several years now. We must now dot the "i" : the Popular Front program is not a popular program, it is a program of generalized impoverishment of the French population.

However, the European elections have shown how much voters, and in particular more and more business leaders, are sensitive to the RN's proposals.

I trust business leaders to take the time to read the projects and denounce the inconsistencies and impacts of the National Rally program. Returning to retirement at 62 means the impoverishment of all French people. Renouncing our tax policy, which we have pursued since 2017, means renouncing the competitiveness of businesses, their ability to create jobs and prosperity throughout the territory. I note that Afep, CPME, U2P, Medef (all employers' organizations, Editor's note), unanimously said that these proposals were dangerous. I welcome this mobilization of the economic world, because we must not cry on July 8, after the elections, when we realize that this program of the National Rally is quite simply a dead end for France.

Would restoring the ISF, as the New Popular Front wishes, bring in the State's fiscal resources ?

The spending proposed by the so-called Popular Front is, in reality, harmful. That’s more than 300 billion euros. The ISF brings in barely 4 billion euros. You see clearly that the account is not there and that, moreover, France would once again stand out, in Europe, by the taxation of the richest, even though, I remind you, the tax today ;rsquo;hui is very focused. On all those who work and all those who have medium or high incomes. In fact, 70% of income tax is paid by 10% of taxpayers. We introduced additional taxation in 2011. It was supposed to be transitional, it was definitive. I don't think the solution lies in more taxation. It’s exactly the opposite.

A political question to finish: was the dissolution necessary ?

Dissolution is the prerogative of the President of the Republic. He exercised it. This is the decision of the President of the Republic alone.

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